


puck or fuck

by jewishbucke



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25241056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jewishbucke/pseuds/jewishbucke
Summary: Buck's interest in Eddie Diaz, the Los Angeles Titans new goaltender, is purely heterosexual... until it's not.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 50





	puck or fuck

**Author's Note:**

> (1) this chapter is purely Buck being gay for Eddie + there's no explicitly nsfw stuff (the descriptions of Eddie are... yeah) in this chapter
> 
> (2) I'm really using "enemies to friends to lovers" very loosely here- Buck hates Eddie for heterosexual reasons and Eddie's just ???
> 
> (3) shout out to everyone for listening to me yell about this fic for, like, two weeks (and who will continue to listen to me yell about it)

"So," he starts, straightening back up and watching the cue ball barely make contact with the green solid, "who do you think is gonna break first? Michael or Bobby? They've been doing this song and dance for years now." Buck glances across the room to where Michael and Bobby sit, drinking beer and talking and getting… closer than friends would.

It's sad, in a way.

How could they be so  _ blind  _ to what's right in front of them?

It's obvious to everyone, even him, that they're smitten for each other and he's not quite sure what's stopping them from crossing that line, from friends to… a little something more.

"Michael's divorce was just finalized," Maddie says, tucking her hair behind her ears as she leans over the table, carefully lining her cue stick up with the cue ball before knocking it across the table. "You're losing, by the way," she adds.

"Yeah, but he and Athena have been split up for… what, six years now?" He gets being _ respectful _ , but he knows Michael has dated a couple of men since the split, so what is Bobby  _ really  _ waiting on? Maybe he's nervous, maybe he's coming to terms with being attracted to men. Buck's been there, done that. But it's getting  _ annoying  _ to watch them use the excuse of "team relations" to spend time with each other outside of the rink.

Maddie sighs, and he glances down to see her third to last ball barely miss the pocket. "I think you might be a little too obsessed with Bobby's love life."

"I am  _ not _ obsessed. I am simply  _ worried  _ about his lack of a love life," he mutters, leaning over the table and poking the cue ball just hard enough that it taps another ball- one of Maddie's. "He's not getting any younger, Mads."

"Oh my God." She groans, knocking her head against the tip of the cue stick. "He's a grown man, not the family dog so quit planning for his death."

"I'm not planning, I'm just accepting that one day — "

"Same thing, Buck," she says, massaging her forehead as if she's trying to ward off an oncoming headache. "Can we please just get back to the game? The one where you're losing. Terribly, I might add."

"I've already lost," he points out, wrinkling his nose as he eyes the sight laid out on the table below him. He has yet to pocket a single ball and there's no way he could possibly win from here, not when Maddie has four left including the eight ball.

She glances up from where she's halfway sprawled across the table. "You haven't lost until I pocket the eight ball," she argues, focusing back on the task at hand, tongue poking out as she squints before pulling back and knocking the cue against the cue ball. "You're doing poorly," she adds as she straightens back up, "but you haven't lost."

"Keep telling yourself that, but I accept defeat with grace." Buck watches her for another second before turning his attention to the dining area, searching the sea of people for Bobby and Michael because he's worried.

Not obsessed.

"Wait." He uses his cue to reach across the table and poke Maddie gently in the side, smiling when she glares up at him from where she's trying to figure out which ball to hit. "Who is that?" Buck points to a table in the corner of the room where Lena is sitting across from a man with fluffy brown hair and a noticeable five o'clock shadow. Did Lena have friends outside of hockey?

"That's the new goalie, Edmundo Diaz," she says, shrugging and leaning back over the table, lining her cue up with the cue ball before sending it across the table where it just barely brushes against one of the striped balls. "He goes by Eddie."

"Hmm…" His eyes flicker back over to where Eddie sits and there's just _ something _ about him. Maybe it's the way he's dressed: light green shirt that hugs his chest and biceps, leaving little to the imagination, and dark blue jeans that seem like they're  _ tailored _ to that ass. Or, what he can see of his ass. "I don't like him."

Maddie snorts. "You haven't even met him, Buck."

"I know," he mutters. Is it fair to judge someone he hasn't met? Maybe not. But Buck likes to think of himself as a pretty decent judge of character, and Eddie? "He just… gives off a  _ vibe _ ."

"A vibe? And what vibe is that?"

"It's…" Buck glances back to where Eddie is sitting, listening intently to whatever… wild story Lena is spinning from her daredevil days (not that she still isn't a daredevil), and he doesn't know why but he doesn't like him. Maybe it's the fact that he looks like a fucking  _ model _ even in the shitty, yellow light of the restaurant. "He just… gives off "I'm hot and I know it" vibes," he says, watching the bob of Eddie's Adam's apple when he swallows before shifting his attention to where Eddie rubs his palms along the inside of his thighs. "It's douche-y of him."

She tries, and fails, to stifle her laughter which only seems to grow in volume the longer it continues. Normally, he loves when she laughs because she spent so long faking it that any real, genuine expression of her happiness warms his heart, but now? Now he wants to lovingly smother her.

Somewhere, deep down, he knows that Eddie can't hear her from where he's sitting across the room but that does nothing to ease Buck's anxieties when Eddie chooses  _ that  _ moment- right when Maddie's laughter devolves into pig snorting -to look over. And logic doesn't stop the way his heart jumps into his throat and his cheeks heat up when their eyes meet for a brief second.  _ Caught _ , he thinks as he ducks his head and focuses on Maddie who is finally-  _ finally  _ -regaining her composure.

"Stop it," he hisses, using his cue to jab her in the side which earns him a warning look, one that lets him know she will get him back for it and she will be ruthless. But as long as she stops laughing, he doesn't quite care if she puts purple dye in his shampoo or shaves off his eyebrows- actually, he might mind that second one. "He's — " His eyes dart back to Eddie and he groans, "they're headed our way."

This only seems to get her to start laughing again and maybe he'd be laughing too if she wasn't laughing at him. "You have a  _ crush _ ," she manages to get out in between her bouts of laughter, "it's cute!"

"I do  _ not  _ have a crush," he hisses, right as Lena thumps him on the back with enough force that he loses his footing and stumbles forward a bit, and he throws a glance in Eddie's direction, almost daring him to say something about it, but he doesn't. Why would he? He doesn't know Buck well enough to give him shit, but he seems like the type of guy who gets too comfortable with people too fast.

It's part of his douche vibe.

And Buck doesn't like him. Not when he was sitting on the other side of the restaurant and certainly not now when he's hugging Maddie like she's an old friend and asking about her cat. (When did she get a cat?) The action causes his stomach to twist itself into a knot and he has to bite his tongue to keep himself together, to keep from saying something, because Maddie is an adult and she can handle herself. Clearly, she's not uncomfortable which  _ irritates  _ him because why isn't she taking his side? What happened to good old fashioned sibling solidarity against douches?

This has to violate some sort of sibling code.

He doesn't get to dwell on it long because Eddie's turning to face him and he has the  _ stupidest _ grin on his face that shows off his teeth, which sit sharp and uneven in his mouth, and it's  _ hot.  _ In an irritating way. "Eddie Diaz," he says, leaning forward a little and holding his hand out across the table. And God, his voice is deep and there's a softness to it, and Buck knows he could listen to it for hours. He would  _ love  _ to. And he hates Eddie for it.

If Maddie wasn't glaring at him from where she stood behind Eddie, arms folded tightly across her chest, he'd probably ignore Eddie's introduction and the hand currently stretched out in front of him. But he's not in the mood to face Maddie's wrath.

"Buck," he says, hesitating before taking Eddie's hand and  _ holy fuck.  _ God sure as hell took his time with Eddie fucking Diaz because even his hands are fantastic, warm and soft to the touch and while he'd cut off his own tongue before admitting it, Buck does wonder- just a little bit -how they'd feel… touching other parts of him.

He clears his throat, giving Eddie's hand another loose shake, glancing over Eddie's shoulder to see Maddie barely smiling. But that’s good enough for him, so he pulls his hand back and moves to the other end of the pool table.

What? It  _ is  _ his turn and it's not his fault that the best angle just happens to be as far away from Eddie as he can get.

"So…" Lena clears her throat. "You've finally moved on from Abby?"

Buck bites down on the inside of his cheek to ground himself, keep himself from lashing out over something silly, because that's what it is. But it's a silly something that he doesn't want to be talking about in front of Eddie, who is a stranger that has no business hearing about his failed relationship or judging him for it with those pretty brown eyes of his.

Buck's failed relationship with Abby is between him and his  _ friends _ , a group that Eddie most certainly does not belong to. "We broke up," is all he says, hitting the cue ball with a little more force than necessary which causes it to pop completely over the ball he was aiming for and roll into one of the pockets. "Your turn, Mads."

Lena whistles lowly. "Did I just step into something?"

When he looks up, she's eyeing him like he's an animal gone mad and she's trying to decide the best course of action to deescalate the situation. Except, he doesn't  _ think _ the situation has escalated. At least, not to the point where she should be giving him  _ that  _ look — the one she reserves for drunkards and men who get a little friendly with Ali or Maddie. It feels weird to have her giving him  _ that  _ look, because he's not one of those guys.

Eddie is silent but when Buck glances over at him, he's just…  _ studying  _ him. There's no other word to describe the way he's staring; Eddie's eyebrows are pulled together, eyes squinty, bottom lip pulled into his mouth and his teeth are digging into the skin underneath. It's weird, it's uncomfortable, but it still gets his heart racing in his chest and his mind wandering to… other things, like what it'd feel like to have Eddie biting and sucking on  _ his  _ bottom lip, and his cheeks heat up a little.

"I just…" His gaze lingers on Eddie for a moment longer before he locks eyes with Lena. "I just don't wanna talk about Abby, okay?"

A half-truth, because if he told the full truth he's pretty sure Maddie would use the cue to spear him like a fish. Which is not how he wants to die.

But anyway, it's not like it's  _ his _ fault that Eddie doesn't respect the fact that he can't just… waltz in and act like he's been friends with everyone else for years, because that's not how things work. He can't just bypass the part where he has to share personal things (like, how big is his dick?) to gain everyone's trust or do something so incredibly  _ stupid  _ just to show that he's all in, because  _ that's  _ how things work.

So, Maddie should have a little sympathy for him because if Eddie had some  _ respect _ , then maybe he'd be nicer. As it is, Eddie was the one who came over acting all chummy, living up to the douche vibes Buck expected from him, and looking like he walked out of someone's wet dream with fuck-me-please eyes and hair that's just  _ begging _ to be pulled and lips —

The point is, it's not like he wants to hate Eddie.

"Okay, we don't have to talk about her," Lena says, shrugging and leaning back against one of the standing tables, but she's still giving Buck  _ that  _ look. It makes him feel uneasy and something twists in his stomach, until finally- finally -she visibly relaxes and focuses her attention on Maddie, a grin breaking across her face. "So, Diaz and I were thinking we could all get together for poker next Friday, would you guys be interested?"

**Author's Note:**

> also I do not take criticism (constructive or otherwise) lmao


End file.
